So let’s see. The Post says we’re being deceived about taxes. Kristof’s reporting says that we were grossly deceived about Iraq. Krugman shows the White House lying about why Bush had to rocket out to that ship. But America’s pundits still quiver and quake, afraid to put two and two together. We’ve learned this week that gambling’s no vice. Apparently, lying—once mightily scorned—has become a Big Virtue now also.

It was all a lie.

Now, this week we find out perhaps invading Iraq wasn’t about chemical, nuclear or biological weapons. Perhaps it wasn’t about getting rid of Saddam, because today we don’t even know where he is.

Perhaps it’s about the $7 billion contract Kellogg Brown & Root is getting not only to put out oil fires, but also to operate oil fields and distribute the oil.

Perhaps there is nothing to the fact that Halliburton, the company Vice President Dick Cheney used to reign over, owns Kellogg Brown & Root. And perhaps there’s nothing to the fact that the contract was non-competitive. But perhaps, what we are seeing is that the war is about oil after all, despite the administration’s current protestations.

At least, it seems, there’s more evidence to support that theory than the one that states the war is about weapons of mass destruction. And I know whom I’m not going to believe.

Over the past week, a series of very controversial activities by Bush, and his administration have come to light.  One could easily connect all these reports together, and find a pattern of activity that is scathing to the Bush Administration.

These stories are headlines around the world, and in the alternative media in the United States, but as usual, these stories escape the headlines of ANY newspaper or television news.  I'm so sick of hearing about the liberal media.  It is one of the biggest lies perpetuated by the right-wing media.

For years we heard about Clinton lying about oral sex with someone other than his wife.  For years we also heard about Whitewater.  $40 million was spent investigating this, and all the Republicans found was Bill Clinton was not a faithful husband, and lied about it.  We knew this before he was elected.  That doesn't even come close to just one week for the Bush Administration.  Ask yourself why the following isn't being looked into further.

THERE ARE MANY examples of the Republican Attack Machine’s relentless drive to demonize its critics, so many that it would be nearly impossible to cite them all — from Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon’s being disinvited from an appearance at the Baseball Hall of Fame because of their anti-war statements to the Dixie Chicks’ being excoriated as virtual enemies of the state because lead singer Natalie Maines commented that she was ashamed Bush was a fellow Texan.

The effect is to create an atmosphere in which dissent — and dissenters — are publicly humiliated, their careers and livelihoods threatened, thus serving as an object lesson to anyone else who might think about deviating from the Republican-defined patriotic line. And yes, of course, people have just as much right to protest and boycott the Chicks as Maines did to speak out. But there is an organized quality to the efforts of the Republican Attack Machine that goes far beyond the spontaneous anger that conservatives might legitimately feel.

Some teachers in Oakland are rallying behind two students who were interrogated by the Secret Service. That followed remarks the teenagers made about the President during a class discussion. The incident has many people angry.

About 340 workers at an Omaha plastics factory will lose pay or have to work next Saturday to make up for time lost during a visit by President Bush today to promote his ''jobs and growth plan,'' their boss said this weekend.